“Being a hick from Texas, I didnʹt know what to think of Steve Paul,” said Shannon. “I’d never seen a New York Jewish guy before. It was weird how it happened. One night, Uncle John and I were sleeping on the floor with our clothes in footlockers. The next day, we fly into the airport, where there were two beautiful girls waiting on us. We went from there to some mansions in upstate New York. We went from sleeping on the floor to living in mansions overnight.”
Shannon also had another experience in New York he had never encountered in Texas.
“When we first moved to New York, there was a black guy named Jason who was supposed to be our valet,” said Shannon. “He was gay and fell in love with me. I was so dumb, I had no idea. One night, we went out and ate with a big group of people. He came over and sat in my lap, and I still didn’t get it. Everybody started laughing and I couldn’t figure it out. Someone had to tell me he was gay. After that it was like, ‘Get away from me, man!’”
Steve Paul enjoyed traveling with an entourage. Whether the initial destination was a restaurant, a concert, or a Broadway play, the group always ended up at his nightclub. He had opened the Scene just off of Manhattan’s theatre district in 1964. The bluecanopied basement club quickly became the place to see and be seen. Tiny Tim of “Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips with Me” fame got his first break at the Scene in 1965 when Paul hired him, and he soon earned the title of House Freak. The Scene was also a spawning ground for up-and-coming musicians and the place where legendary players always stopped by for the good-looking groupies and impromptu jams.
“There was always a line outside the Scene and lots of celebrities,” says Johnny. “Jimi Hendrix and all of the English bands who came to New York—once they left their gigs, they came to jam. It was a real well known place for rock ‘n’ roll people. There was everything in the Scene in 1968—heroin and cocaine, speed, ups, downs, grass. They pretty much did it in the open and nobody cared.”
Turner and Shannon were also dazzled by the Scene and the musicians the club attracted.
“All the people at the Scene were famous,” said Turner. “Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker. One of the first times we went there Jerry Lee Lewis played.”
“The first time I went to the Scene I couldn’t believe it,” said Shannon. “Jimi Hendrix and Rod Stewart were there, as well as the most beautiful girls you can imagine. You have to remember, we were hicks from Texas. I couldn’t believe Jimi Hendrix was sitting over there, Jerry Lee Lewis was there—any night of the week, you would go in and there’d be great musicians. I played with all the great guitar players just about... Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Muddy Waters, and all the Kings [Albert, Freddie, B. B.], just about all the great guitar players except Jimi Hendrix.”
Early in their careers, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Rascals, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and the Chambers Brothers performed at the club, which was known for its horrible ventilation, deafening acoustics, and laissez-faire attitude. Raven, a Buffalo-based rock/ blues/jazz band that relocated to New York City, played there regularly, and was the backdrop for Johnny to dazzle new audiences with his mastery of the guitar. Other house bands included the McCoys; Free Spirits, a jazz-rock band with Larry Coryell and Jim Pepper; and Players, which featured Dan Armstrong, the studio session guitarist and luthier who invented the clear Plexiglas guitar. Patrons witnessed musical history in the making at amazing jams by Janis Joplin and Eric Burdon; Tiny Tim and the Doors; Richie Havens and Joan Baez; Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck; Hendrix and B. B. King; the Monkees and Frank Zappa; Hendrix and Jim Morrison; and Hendrix and Johnny Winter.
The excitement and success of that nightclub attracted more than just celebrities, musicians, and groupies. A local thug named Junior—purported to be a member of organized crime—demanded a cut of the club’s income. When Paul and the club’s manager Teddy Slatus, who later became Johnny’s manager, refused, Junior retaliated with a show of force. In late August 1969, he planted a number of thugs in the club and staged a fight that started a brawl and injured a number of patrons. An off-duty detective celebrating his wedding anniversary used the office phone to call police. Police arrived and made several arrests, but not in time to save Slatus from a brutal beating. Slatus, who left the club alone when he locked up at 4 AM each morning, refused to testify against the wise guys. The club never reopened after that fateful night, but before it closed its doors forever, it played a pivotal role in Johnny’s career.
After Johnny captivated New York by sitting in with Bloomfield and Kooper at the Fillmore East and jamming with Hendrix at the Scene, Paul announced that sealed bids would be accepted from four record companies: RCA Victor, Columbia, Elektra, and Atlantic. The competition flamed the fires of desire. Johnny continued to play his heart out and let Paul handle negotiations with record executives who flocked to the Scene to check out this amazing new talent. Columbia won the bidding war with what Columbia president Clive Davis called the “largest amount ever given to a new performer in Columbia’s history.”
“There was a bidding war between Jerry Wexler at Atlantic and Clive Davis before I signed with Columbia in February 1969,” says Johnny. “They were the two big name bidders. The Columbia deal was $600,000 over a period of five years—I had to do two albums a year. They said it was the highest advance in history but I don’t think it really was. We only got $50,000 at a time for each record we put out. We ended up not making two albums a year—we made one album a year. It came out to just about $600,000 over a long period—about ten years.”
Danny Fields, who managed the MC5, the Stooges, the Ramones, Steve Forbert, and Jonathan Richman, was an influential figure on the New York and Detroit underground punk music scenes during the 1960s and 1970s. As a member of Warhol’s social circle, he frequented the Scene and traveled in the same crowd as Paul. Fields offered insight into Paul during an interview with Paul Trynka for the biography Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed.
“Steve was very smart and very canny and had been in show business since he was fourteen,” said Fielding. “He seemed to be in everything. He ran poker games at hotels. He was a publicist for the Peppermint Lounge and he was in the real early sixties Mister New York Highlife and the Scene was the scene. Jimi Hendrix was there every night. He’s a character. Steve Paul could construct a visionary, a tableau of the timeline of the future and he was going to change Johnny and Edgar and do the first albino brother act in history and all this worked out. He didn’t give any of the other supporting players [a chance] to express themselves or become themselves. He’s got the scenario, and here’s the script, and this is what will happen.
“That was the strategy with Johnny from the beginning. They thought they would get a buzz going and then he would get some figures tossed around. I think he wanted $600,000 for signing him, which in ‘69 was a lot of money for a blues guitar player.... Steve had such a hype going that it was dominated by the price; the amount of money had been broadcast in the industry. He broadcast the asking price for Johnny Winter as if that was evidence of his work. In other words, ʹI won’t start under $50,000 or $75,000 upon signing.’ And everyone is supposed to go, ‘Whoa! They must really be fabulous!’
“He suckered Clive into doing it because he’s so persuasive and so eloquent, visionary and brilliant, and has incredible linguistic skills. That’s why anyone calling him a fool is one. He may have done or be doing foolish things, but he ain’t no fool. He’s like a Jewish James Joyce when he gets on a roll. He’s formidable and the domitability of him is that if you want to shut him up. ʹHereʹs $600,000; I have someone else waiting to see me.’ ‘Thanks, Clive, you won’t be sorry.’”
Paul invested “a fair amount” of time and money into building Johnny’s career. The cost of limos, housing, hotels, food, and traveling with an entourage was substantial. Johnny’s income was deposited into a corporate account. Paul paid expenses and the band drew a salary. Although Johnny initially earned up to $10,000 a performance, he and his band members received one hundred dollars a week.
“We just drew money off the corporation,” said Turner. “I didn’t think much about it. At the time, it was enough money to get along. They paid our room and board; everything was paid for. That one hundred dollars was spending money for drinks and clothes, and we spent plenty on both.”
“We got nothing out of the advance,” said Shannon. “We got one hundred dollars a week; it was like a salary. We did the same thing with Stevie [Ray Vaughan] except we were drawing $1,750 a month. Expenses were paid; we paid for clothes, amplifiers. A girl I met named Eleanor took me out and helped me buy all these cool clothes—velvet bellbottoms, really cool shirts, shades... she got me looking like a rock star.”
“I always let Steve handle the business end because he knew more about it than I did,” says Johnny. ”It’s not that I didnʹt care about money at all—itʹs something you have to be aware of—but it wasn’t the main part of it. Music was the main thing. Having more money didn’t affect me very much. I just got to get the things I wanted—it was nice in that way. I could buy all the records I wanted. But then you had to take care of your money—that was hard because you had to trust your accountant. Accountants you could trust were hard to find. In that way, it was hard to make it [be successful], keep the money coming in right, and have somebody to take care of it.
“When I got the deal, I moved to New York with Red and Tommy. We all lived in a house in Staatsburg, New York, close to Rhinebeck. Five minutes from Poughkeepsie, about a hundred miles out of New York City. It was a lot cheaper to live in Staatsburg than living in the city. When we stayed in the city, we stayed at the Chelsea Hotel.”
Located at 222 West Twenty-Third Street and officially called “Hotel Chelsea,” the Chelsea Hotel attracted writers, visual artists, musicians, actors, and film directors. Famous residents included Robert Mapplethorpe, Arthur Miller, Joni Mitchell (who wrote “Chelsea Morning” while staying there), Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Tom Wolfe, William Bur-roughs, Tennessee Williams, and members of Andy Warhol’s circle, including model Edie Sedgwick, Ultra Violet, and Viva. The Chelsea Girls, Warhol’s 1966 film about his Factory regulars and their lives at the hotel, was shot on location.
“I loved the Chelsea Hotel because when you walked in, there were girls sitting around and you’d say, ‘Do you want to come up to my room?’ and they would go up with you,” said Shannon. “There were always bands rehearsing on one floor, and other bands on another floor. It wasn’t a typical hotel; it was a real rock ‘n’ roll-type hotel. Whenever we came to New York City we would stay there. We stayed there two weeks one time... Uncle John and I shared a room.”
“When we started going into New York City, we stayed here and there—nicer places,” said Turner. “But pretty soon we learned that the Chelsea Hotel was the place for us to stay. It was run down but it was a musicians’ paradise. I remember seeing Jefferson Airplane there. The people in the Chelsea Hotel catered to artists and musicians. The bellhop had everything you wanted. He’d take you up to your room and ask you if you needed anything. He meant pills, drugs, alcohol, and women.”
Shortly after the move to New York, the band went into the studio to cut their first album. Before signing with Columbia, Johnny insisted on two prerequisites.
“I made sure the band went with me and I had total creative control,” says Johnny. “That meant I could do anything I wanted to do with the record—pick the songs, do the recording, and the producing.”
Johnny Winter, released on April 15, 1969, is a seminal blues recording with appearances by legendary bluesmen Willie Dixon on bass and Walter “Big Walter” Horton on harmonica, as well as Edgar on horns and piano.
“It took several months to do that record,” Johnny says. “I picked Columbia’s Nashville studio because it was more laid back than New York.”
“We did it in Nashville because, according to Steve Paul, the New York scene had too many restrictions on working situations in the studio,” said Turner. “The union was heavy in New York. They would only work a certain amount of hours or they got paid double time. Steve Paul always saw angles.”
“I wanted to make an album that Johnny would believe in, and hopefully would introduce him for the fine musician and great artist he is,” said Paul. “Nashville was free from New York distraction and we could concentrate totally on the recording and good chicken and biscuits. It’s also a very musical town, which Johnny and I had respect for. Eddie Kramer [who was credited as production consultant] is a great engineer, producer, and photographer, and helped us make a good record.”
The craft of songwriting doesn’t come easy to Johnny, but Paul encouraged him to write several for Johnny Winter. “I usually can’t write enough songs for a whole record—I usually write two or three songs,” Johnny says. “I wrote ‘I’m Yours and I’m Hers,’ ‘Back Door Friend,’ ‘Leland Mississippi Blues,’ and I wrote ‘Dallas’ from my experiences there with Red and Tommy.”
Johnny was referring to the gig at the Phantasmagoria in Dallas, but Turner remembered another incident that made Johnny reluctant to play that town.
“Our second job in the world was in Dallas,” Turner said. “Me and Tommy had been playing at the club for a year or two before that. Our tradition was to go out and eat at the same restaurant after the gig, so we brought Johnny with us. It was his first time there. I remember coming back from the bathroom and seeing Johnny with his back up to the wall and his feet up, defending himself against two rednecks who decided to attack him. They were fighting but there wasn’t a lot of leg room in the booth, so he was between the wall and the booth with his feet up kicking. For a long time Johnny just thought Dallas was a big redneck place.”
Johnny played a Fender Mustang on Johnny Winter, and was thrilled to perform a song with Dixon and Horton on that recording. “Willie Dixon played acoustic bass on ‘Mean Mistreater,ʹʺ says Johnny. “Big Walter Horton played on that song too. We had a hard time getting just one cut out of him. He was interested in playing with a water glass and I hated it. He’d move the glass around in front of the harmonica to make a vibrato. I had never seen anybody do that and I hope I never see anybody else do it either. It’s terrible. He wouldn’t let me record anything more than once, so we had to keep on coming up with different songs for him to play on. Finally he got tired of playing with a glass and we got through ‘Mean Mistreater’ with him playing okay. He laid down one real good track and we were happy to get one track out of him. Edgar played piano on one track and horns on another. Johnny Winter sold a couple of hundred thousand copies. For a first record, that was pretty good.”
“Willie Dixon spent his time sort of hustling Johnny,” said Turner. “He spent most of the time trying to sell Johnny some more of his songs. He had a whole briefcase full of songs, trying to get Johnny to do some of them. Walter ‘Shakey’ Horton was an ornery old dude; we finally had to do whatever he wanted to do. He wanted to use a glass like a wah-wah pedal on his harmonica. Of course, we didn’t want that. We wanted him in his blues glory. Eventually we had to get him to start a song and play along with it.”
Shannon missed a take at that session and Johnny’s offhand remark about it became part of the album. “Right before ‘Leland Mississippi Blues,’ Johnny says to me, ‘Don’t mess up, Slut, and I won’t either,’” said Shannon. “Slut was my nickname, and I screwed up the take before that, so he said, ‘Don’t mess up, ‘Slut.’”
Steve Paul is credited on the liner notes of that album (and several others) as “Spiritual Producer.” In a decade that extolled the virtues of peace, love, freedom, and happiness, Paul said it seemed appropriate at the time, but it never made sense to Johnny, who produced the LP.
“That was his thing,” says Johnny. “He wanted to be a spiritual producer. He wasn’t a spiritual person but he thought he was. I just wanted him to put manager because that’s what he was; he wasn’t a spiritual producer.”
“Spiritual producer is the name he gave himself,” added Shannon. “He was the fur
thest thing from spiritual I have ever seen.”
Spirituality didn’t appear to be a guiding force for any of Johnny’s former managers and producers. After the glut of publicity that resulted from his deal with Columbia Records, his past came back to haunt him. Josey had kept a copy of the Vulcan Gas Company tapes, and had already pressed several hundred records on his own label. In fall 1968, he began selling Progressive Blues Experiment in a plain white jacket for six dollars a copy at Phil’s Record Shop on West Twenty-Fourth Street in Austin. By the time the ink had dried on Johnny’s Columbia contract, Josey sold the LP to United Artists, which released it on Imperial with the same title and a distinctive Burton Wilson cover shot of Johnny wearing a cream-colored satin Nehru shirt and love beads, staring at his reflection in the back of his National guitar.
According to Wilson, when Josey hired him, he specifically asked for a series of standard promotion shots against a seamless white paper with Johnny in “various hippie costumes” with his guitar. Johnny brought four or five outfits to the shoot and as many guitars. Wilson shot several rolls of film following Josey’s directive, but when Johnny picked up his National guitar, he became creative.
“With only one exposure left in my camera, I decided to do my own thing,” he said in The Austin Music Scene Through the Lens of Burton Wilson, an impressive book of music photography that spans three decades. “I asked him to hold it so his face reflected on the back of the guitar and I snapped the photo.” Josey sold all of Wilson’s photographs to United Artists; the label used four additional photos on the back cover.
The release of Progressive Blues Experiment came as a complete surprise to Johnny. “I didn’t know the record was coming out and didn’t have much say about it, but they left it pretty much the way I recorded it,” he says. “I never made a penny off of it. How they got away with that, I donʹt know, but they did. Bill Josey had the tapes and he got the money. Even now when they sell that CD, I don’t get any money. I was used to that. When I talked to a lawyer, he said it wouldn’t be worth pursuing.”
Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) Page 12